"The Grand Magistry of the Sovereign Order of Malta has issued a
statement making it clear that the Holy See does not have the authority
to appoint a commission to investigate the replacement of the former
Grand Chancellor. This statement was in response to the Holy See's
Secretariat of State announcing that Pope Francis had appointed a team
to investigate the removal of the Order’s Grand Chancellor, Albrecht von
Boeselager."

Monday, 19 December 2016

Astonishing facts about the resistance of Pius XII against Nazi Germany, during the war, have been released in a new book. Kevin J. Jones from CNA/EWTN writes:-

"Pope Pius XII's secret support for the attempted overthrow of Nazi dictator
Adolf Hitler is the subject of a recent book that draws on wartime documents
and interviews with the American intelligence agent who wrote them.

“This book is the truth – as best I could establish it in a number of years
of research – about the Pope’s secret operations in World War II,” historian
Mark Riebling told CNA earlier this year….“Its main premise is that Pius opted
to resist Hitler with covert action instead of overt protest. As a result, he
became involved in three separate plots by German dissidents to remove Hitler.”

Riebling tells this story in his book “Church
of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler,” published by
Basic Books in September 2015. In the late 1990s, debate over whether Pius XII
did enough to counter the Nazis reached a high point with the publication of
the deeply controversial book, “Hitler's Pope,” by British journalist John
Cornwell. The book was highly critical of Pius XII, charging that he was
culpably silent – if not an accomplice – in the rise of Nazism. During research
on his previous book, “Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA,” Riebling
discovered wartime documents from Angleton's Rome section of the Office of
Strategic Services.

According to Riebling, his book does not charge that the Pope “tried to kill
Hitler.” Rather, the Pope’s actions were more subtle….“Pius becomes a key
cog in conspiracies to remove a ruler who is a kind of Antichrist, because good
people ask for his help, and he searches his conscience, and he agrees to
become an intermediary for the plotters – their foreign agent, as it were – and
thereby he becomes an accessory to their plots.”

The historian described these actions as “some of the most astonishing
events in the history of the papacy.” Pius
XII had connections with three plots against Hitler. The first, from October
1939 to May 1940, involved German military conspirators. From late 1941 to
spring of 1943 a series of plots involving the German Jesuits ended when a bomb
planted on Hitler’s plane failed to explode.The third plot again involved German
Jesuits and also German military colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Although the
colonel successfully planted a bomb near the Nazi dictator, it failed to kill
Hitler. The priests had to flee after the failed attempt. Those unable to
escape were executed.

Pius XII's agents provided the Allies with useful intelligence about
Hitler's war plans on three occasions, including Hitler’s planned invasion of
Russia. In all three cases, the Allies did not act on the information.

For their part, the Nazis regarded Pius XII with suspicion since his
election in 1939.“He worked hard to allay those suspicions, to minimize
persecutions of German Catholics. But the Nazis never dropped their guard,” Riebling
said…”at one point Hitler planned to invade the Vatican, kidnap the Pope and
bring him to Germany. Leading Nazi Heinrich Himmler wanted to have the Holy
Father publicly executed to celebrate the opening of a new soccer stadium,”
Riebling said….“Pius became aware of these plans, through his secret
papal agents; and, in my view, that influenced the Holy Father’s decision to
become involved with the anti-Nazi resistance.”

For Riebling, the assassination plots against Hitler were an admission of
weakness, “because it’s saying that we can’t solve the problem by some other
means…. when he heard that a priest was arrested for praying for the Jews and
sent off to a concentration camp, he said: 'I wish everyone would do that.'”